The early church wasn’t afraid to engage the culture around it even when that culture was unfriendly to its biblical worldview. In fact, unfriendly turned hostile was more the norm in the first century. Athens was a junkyard of pagan idols. Sexual immorality in the Roman world would make Las Vegas blush. Thought this licentious climate “greatly distressed” the Apostle Paul, he wasn’t afraid to engage that culture. He “reasoned” with them, using their language and quoting their poets. Paul built bridges to infiltrate the culture around him.

Unfortunately too many Christians are more interested in building forts to protect themselves and their values from the culture around them. The problem with that is that God’s plan for redeeming the evils of our world are His people contaminating it with the good news of a kingdom not of this world. Being a follower of Jesus isn’t about extracting ourselves from the culture for the sakes of our values. It’s about engaging the culture for the sake of bringing our values into it.

So, are you going to build a fort? Or are you going to build a bridge?

If you missed this message out of Acts 17 from Our Story, you can watch it here or at cedarridgecc.com.